I really wish somebody took me out of the movie theater before the movie started because I highly regretted sitting through one hour and thirty minutes of melodrama, horrible line readings, and mediocre -- but painfully short -- action sequences.The movie begins in the richy-rich suburbs of L.A. and to my utter surprise it began not with a bang, but with some slow music and melodrama. I thought that I just bought a ticket for a Spanish telenovela it was so cheesy and horribly executed. I don't really blame the actors for this, I think they tried their best do deliver some really bad lines, which were by far some of the most bland and tedious lines that I have ever heard in any movie ever. In addition to the bad lines, the first thirty minutes of this movie put Liam Neeson out of his expected role and into the shoes of a caring daddy who speaks like a robot. He wasn't kicking ass and killing bad guys in an indiscriminate rampage, he was comforting his wife and stalking his daughter. WHAT THE HELL? I didn't come to soap opera night at the theater! I came to see LIAM "BAMF" NEESON beat the living crap out of a bunch or kidnapping, sex slave peddlers.
The good part didn't even begin until a little before the halfway point of the movie, and it still started slowly. Liam Neeson was running away from the bad guys, and this scenario usually constitutes a good chase scene; but yet again, this is the Taken franchise and Liam Neeson, so he should be killing his attackers without remorse, not running from them. The first murder didn't even occur until about 50 minutes into the movie. This is unforgivable. I came to see Liam Neeson kill guys with ridiculous precision and super-human skills from the get go, not more than halfway through the movie. The rampage should have started from the get go and looked like this:
Not like the picture above, where he is relaxing with his daughter and having an awkward conversation with her. By the time the rampage got going, it was underwhelming and occasionally, Neeson's actions seemed the exact opposite of calculated. At one point, he drove a taxi straight through the U.S. embassy in order to avoid the bad guys, breaking down barriers and getting shot at by marines with 50 caliber machine guns. He could have simply stopped the car, showed his passport, and explained the situation; but instead, he risked his daughter's and his life by trying to drive through various military blockades in a crappy taxi. For me, that sequence was excruciating and I simply couldn't suspend my disbelief and disregard it.
After his daughter was safe at the embassy, Neeson yet again goes out for revenge and to save his wife. He tracks the arch-bad-dudes location and kills about four guys without blinking. Finally, he reaches a hexagonal room where a fat dude is waiting for him, but this fat guy isn't the main bad guy, the main bad guy uses this fat guy as his last line of defense; so as Neeson slowly approaches him in the most overly dramatic way possible.
The boss battle was actually pretty good and I enjoyed it, but was still annoyed about how the director works so hard to emphasize this battle and pretty much shout at the audience "HEY GUYS, BE EXCITED, IT IS A BOSS BATTLE! LIKE MARIO VS BOWSER!", like we don't understand its the final fight before the end.
Anyway, after some intense grappling Neeson dispatches the guy and confronts the arch-baddy, whom he gives the choice to let his wife go and stop seeking vengeance and in return Neeson will not kill him. WHY? WHY? Your are a hard core bad ass who doesn't take revenge lightly, in the last movie you literally tortured and murdered every single bad guy, and now, you offer this pathetic old man who wants to kill your whole family and you a chance to live. Talk about a two-faced character, this was a complete change of personality for Neeson's character. I understand the moral, but I can't reconcile that with the sudden personality change that Neeson undergoes. I guess all that soap opera crap in the beginning really did make Neeson a forgiving understanding man. Luckily, the bad guy still tries to kill Liam Neeson, whom responds by swiftly smashing his head into a piece of crowbar protruding from the wall, which would be awesome if the cinematography of this scene was not so horrible. It was nearly impossible to see what Neeson slammed his head into, the crowbar was barely visible in the scene, so if you were not paying complete attention it would have looked like Neeson just lightly pushed his head against the wall and the pathetic old man died. They should have just cut it off at that point, but they had to end one last family man scene in which he eats dinner with his family and his daughter's boyfriend, whom he doesn't scare this time. The End. Thank God
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